Say you ask me what 7 x 6 is. I have the vague memorized belief that 7 x 6 = 42. But I am not sure about that. At all. So I would never automatically answer 42. Instead I would determine a close by equation that I am sure of, like 7 x 5. Positive it equals 35. And then I would think 35 + 7 is kind of difficult to add up. But I do know that 5 + 2 = 7 and 35 + 5 = 40 and 40 + 2 = 42. So after I thought that all through, I would definitively tell you that 7 x 6 is indeed 42.

Similarly, I believe that 6 + 7 = 13, but if you asked me to quickly tell you what 6 + 7 equals, I would first quickly run through my head that I know that 7 + 3 = 10 and that 3 more is 13.

Also, I think that we should all be under the metric system. I am really, really comfortable with systems based on 10's. Jus' Sayin'

Also. it used to really irk me when math teachers told you(me) that you figured a problem incorrectly even though you ended up with the correct answer. YOU GOT THE CORRECT ANSWER! HOW COULD IT BE WRONG??

I recently polled a vast amount of people (2) and they agreed to the following things:
1. I am alone in not automatically feeling confident that 7 x 6 = 42.
2. As long as I can figure it in my head in less than 4 seconds, it doesn't matter how I figure it.

So I am wrong. But not.

Talk to me people: How do you do calculations in your head? How much math is automatically stored in your memory?

As previously stated, I am prone to bursts of anger towards people who criticize my way of calculating math. I still despise my 5th grade math teacher. Comment with caution.

3 comments:

Girl I am the same way when it comes to making calculations. First of all, if someone ask me, I am either with my mathematician husband who can quickly calculate or I am with my super smart brother Joe who thinks I am dumb anyways and would never let me answer a math question because in his words, "I am an idiot". Joe has a plethora of useless knowledge and knows all type of things. So does E. E is excellent at Math and has great reasoning skills. me, not so much!!! So you are not alone Megls. I am the same way!